Hillary The Cipher

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Sixty Minutes On Behghazi

Sixty Minutes has done an expose on Benghazi - interviewing one of the participants on the ground that night. It might lead one to think that there might be something more to the Benghazi "scandal" than simple partisanship:



There are three legs to the Benghazi scandal - the Sixty Minutes episode dwells on the first and only alludes to the other two. Just as a reminder, those three legs are:

1) The refusal over months to provide increased security in the face of an open and obvious threat, was criminally reckless. There is some evidence that this was part of a deliberate policy to go forward with a light footprint in Libya for political reasons - though the author of that policy has never been identified. Moreover, this failure to provide adequate security shows an administration that completely misunderstands the threat we face from radical Wahhabi Islamists, and indeed, whitewashes Wahabbi Islam to the point of portraying it as benign.

2) The Obama administration refused to send any military assets to rescue our people once the attack started. Our people were left to die - my suspicion, because of domestic political considerations. No assets were scrambled, irrespective of whether they would have been there in time.

3) The complete whitewash and cover-up in the wake of Benghazi. One element of this was Obama and Clinton blaming the attack on a rogue movie review. A second element was an "official investigation" that did not include any interviews of high ranking State Dept. officials, including Clinton herself. The third element is that no one has been held accountable for any of this. Even the four mid-level staffers at the State Dept. who were identified anonymously as the people who had made the security decisions that led to the Benghazi slaughter still have their jobs at the State Dept.

Bastards.

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Steyn On Our Orwellian Nation

This from Mark Steyn today:

When the state has the power to know everything about everyone, the integrity of the civil service is the only bulwark against men like Holder. Instead, the ruling party and the non-partisan bureaucracy seem to be converging. In August 2010, President Obama began railing publicly against “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity” (August 9th, a speech in Texas) and “shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names” (August 21st, radio address). And whaddayaknow, that self-same month the IRS obligingly issued its first BOLO (Be On the Look-Out) for groups with harmless-sounding names, like “tea party,” “patriot,” and “constitution.”

It may be that the strange synchronicity between the president and the permanent bureaucracy is mere happenstance and not, as it might sound to the casual ear, the sinister merging of party and state. Either way, they need to be pried apart. When the state has the capability to know everything except the difference between right and wrong, it won’t end well.

And to put this in historical context:

So we know the IRS is corrupt. What happens then when an ambitious government understands it can yoke that corruption to its political needs? What’s striking as the revelations multiply and metastasize is that at no point does any IRS official appear to have raised objections. If any of them understood that what they were doing was wrong, they kept it to themselves. When Nixon tried to sic the IRS on a few powerful political enemies, the IRS told him to take a hike. When Obama’s courtiers tried to sic the IRS on thousands of ordinary American citizens, the agency went along, and very enthusiastically. This is a scale of depravity hitherto unknown to the tax authorities of the United States, and for that reason alone they should be disarmed and disbanded — and rebuilt from scratch with far more circumscribed powers.

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Obama's Scandals, Arrogance Unbound & The MSM

There have been countless potential scandals in the Obama government, but the supine mainstream media merely yawned. Yet now with team Obama safely ensconced in a second term, the mainstream media is actually taking some notice. Finally, Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP scandals are being deemed at least somewhat newsworthy, And one gets the distinct feel that the Obama administration did not expect this. Their response has been stonewalling and castigating. From Hillary's "what difference does it make" to Obama's rewrite of history while scolding us that the Benghazi talking points are a mere side show, they are treating us to a combined display of arrogance and shamelessness never before seen in my lifetime.

And of course, the far left is likewise in damage control mode. Donna Brazile brazenly refers to the IRS and AP scandals as lynch parties and the Benghazi investigation as itself the scandal. According to Albert Hunt, Bloomberg's Executive Editor Emeritus, these are mere "faux scandals" - "Republicans are trying to destroy President Barack Obama’s second term by magnifying bureaucratic miscues and distorting policy realities." Four dead Americans, an election where conservative voices were wrongfully silenced, and a bevy of people being treated differently by government would suggest otherwise, but Hunt is hardly the only one making such claims. Yet another left wing talking point is that some of the language in the actual Benghazi e-mails differs in form from what was reported in the stories run by Stephen Hayes and John Karl. The fact that the substance of the e-mails is unchanged is wholly ignored. The intellectual dishonesty of these people is stunning.

The Obama administration is accusing anyone who speaks of these scandals as "politicizing" them. It is rather a unique definition of "politicizing" they are pushing - to have the temerity to demand facts and seek truth that might in any way hurt the administration.

We are at an inflection point, I think. The left is bound and determined to brazen their way through these scandals. Whether the MSM will ultimately help them is unknown. If the left succeeds, it will be yet another nail in the coffin of our nation. But then again, we may finally have reached critical mass and the supine MSM will start doing their jobs. In at least one case Sunday, an old school journalist decided not to drink the Obama Kool-aide. Dumb and dumber indeed.



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The Benghazi Drip & The Incompetence Defense

In the aftermath of the document dump covering just a three day slice of time beginning two days after the Benghazi attack, the White House position is that all things Benghazi are now pure partisan politics by evil right wingers. In other words, the MSM have been given their marching orders, now its time to move on.

But it would seem that not all in the MSM are prepared to drink the Kool-Aid just yet. For instance, there was this on CBS News show Flashpoint, which noted that much about Benghazi still remains hidden:



CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson reports that many in the administration are pleading a defense of incompetence for leaving our people in Benghazi to die with no support forthcoming:

Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012, acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath.

The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it's important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect "incompetence rather than malice or cover up." Nonetheless, in the eight months since the attacks, this is the most sweeping and detailed discussion by key players of what might have been done differently.

"We're portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots," said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. "It's actually closer to us being idiots."

The Obama administration's chief critics on Benghazi, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., remain skeptical. They see a pattern, even a conspiracy, to deflect attention from the idea that four Americans had been killed by al Qaeda-linked attackers, on the president's watch. "There is no conclusion a reasonable person could reach other than that for a couple of weeks after the attack, [the Obama administration was] trying to push a narrative that was politically beneficial to the president's re-election," Graham told CBS News.

The list of mea culpas by Obama administration officials involved in the Benghazi response and aftermath include: standing down the counterterrorism Foreign Emergency Support Team, failing to convene the Counterterrorism Security Group, failing to release the disputed Benghazi "talking points" when Congress asked for them, and using the word "spontaneous" while avoiding the word "terrorism."

There is much more to her column. She goes on to assert that Commander In Extremis force was in fact diverted from its training mission in Croatia to forward deployment in Italy, but by the time they arrived, the fighting was over. She also notes that AFRICOM was in the process of forming its own Commander In Extremis force, but it was in the U.S. finishing up its training. That still does not explain the lack of military support.

Be that as it may, that still does not explain the lack of sending other assets, whether air or land. You go to war with what you have, not with what you want to have. The fact that a specially trained QRF was not available does not mean that a host of other assets could have been on the ground or over target in time to make a difference. You will recall that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claimed that the military did not provide assets during the attack because they were never "asked" to do so by the State Dept. That testimony must be read in light of the testimony the other day that, at 2 a.m. Benghazi time, while the terrorist attack was ongoing, Hillary Clinton spoke by phone with State's second in charge in Libya, Johnathan Hicks, and told him that no military support would be coming. Those two statements seem to be in direct conflict. Bottom line, there is much more to this story to be told or, to use the words of POTUS, there is a lot more there there. I suspect that there is some truth to the gross incompetence story, but I also suspect that the dominant consideration in all aspects of the Benghazi scandal was political.

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The "There" of Benghazi

At a press conference yesterday, an angry Obama wanted everybody to know that Benghazi is a non-issue - or as he put it, "there's no there there." It's all just Republicans acting for wholly political motives.

Apparently seeking objective truth is purely political to the ideological left, where only "socialist truth" matters. Obama's arrogance, shamelessness and dishonesty are breathtaking.



Just a reminder of what's "there":

1. Our diplomats were put in a situation where they were left unprotected despite repeated requests for more security in an environment of ever increasing threat. We still don't know whether the decisions to deny increased security was the result of a policy decision to "normalize" our security posture, as e-mails have suggested and at least one person has testified, or, as the ARB states, the decisions were simply bad judgement by low level security officials. If it is the former, than this is ipso facto proof that this administration's policy towards radical Islam is dangerously out of touch with reality.

2. Once news of the attack hit Washington, not a single asset beyond a spy drone was activated to respond, thus leading one to speculate that our people were left to die rather than risk a messy situation two months before the election. There has yet to be anything close to an adequate and believable answer that would suggest otherwise. Where were Obama, Clinton and Panetta? Did Generals' Dempsey and Ham really sit on their thumbs and not begin to forward deploy assets? Why did the White House refuse to activate the FEST? Who told the small spec ops contingent in Tripoli not to deploy to Benghazi and why? What was Hillary's role? Why did Johnathan Hick's testify that, in a 2 a.m. phone call during the attack, Hillary told Hicks that no military response would be forthcoming? And if Hillary was in the loop, why did she not testify before the ARB?

3. Obama just engaged in a complete rewrite of history regarding the talking points. Powerline has the definitive post on this, though you can't go wrong with the Fox News panels analysis (and it is now official, Kirsten Powers is my favorite living left of center person):



I could go on, but suffice it to say that there is a hell of a lot of there there. And it matters.

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The Benghazi Hearing - More Questions Than Answers

The three legs of the Benghazi scandal:

1. The criminally reckless refusal to increase security at Benghazi despite full knowledge of the increasing threat.

2. The failure to respond to the terrorist attack in Benghazi with any military assets.

3. The post attack actions of the Obama administration, from lying about the nature of the attacks to stonewalling and witness intimidation.

Today's hearing on Benghazi before the House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform informed on all of these legs, but brought to light more questions than answers.

Hicks Testimony Contradicts The Accountability Review Board

As regards the refusal to increase security at Benghazi, Gregory Hicks, former top deputy to Ambassador Christopher Stevens, said that Ambassador went to Benghazi on Sep. 11 because Sec. of State Clinton was going to convert the Benghazi mission to a permanent constituent post. Yet the Accountability Review Board, in their whitewash of Clinton and the State Dept., justified the failure to increase security in Benghazi on the grounds that it was a "temporary" post whose future was "uncertain." Those assertions are in direct contradiction - one that might have been answered if the Accountability Review Board had actually interviewed Secretary of State Clinton. It raises yet more questions as why increased security was refused. If you will recall, there are indications that it was done in respect to a policy decision referenced in certain e-mails.

Military Assets & FEST Were Denied Permission To Repond

As regards the lack of any military response, Hicks testified that a four man special ops detachment was twice denied clearance to travel from Tripoli to Benghazi to respond to the attack. No justification was given, and Hicks speculated that the stand down order came from AFRICOM.

Mark Thompson, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the State Department, on duty when the first reports of the terrorist attack reached Washington, testified that he immediately sought White House approval to activate FEST, described by the State Dept. as an:

. . . on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide. Led and trained by the Operations Directorate of the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, it assists U.S. missions and host governments in responding quickly and effectively to terrorist attacks. The FEST, which has deployed to over 20 countries since its inception in 1986, leaves for an incident site within four hours of notification, providing the fastest assistance possible.

The FEST provides round-the-clock advice and assistance to Ambassadors and foreign governments facing crisis. The Team is comprised of seasoned experts from the Department of State, FBI, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the Intelligence Community. Once on the scene, FEST members help Ambassadors assess the emergency, advise on how best to respond, and assist in managing consequent operations. . . .

Thompson testified that the request was denied by the White House with no justification given. Hicks further testified that the defense attache said that jets from Italy could've been there in 2-3 hours, but there were no tankers to refuel them. To add, an F22 has a range of about 1,800 miles. Using back of an envelope calculations, a flight from the air base in Italy to Benghazi would have eaten up about half or more of the fuel, so refueling would be an issue. That said, where were the tankers and what would there response time have been?

The testimony as to FEST is indeed significant, but on the larger issue of a lack of military response, it is little more than walking around the margins. The day of the attack was Sept. 11. Hours earlier there had already been a potential incident at the Embassy in Cairo. I spent too long in the military as an infantry officer, including doing plans and operations in Korea, to believe anything other than that AFRICOM, responsible for military operations in Egypt and Libya, would have had contingency plans operational and soldiers suited up and on alert for just such an attack as occurred in Benghazi. Knowing what I know, anything else is inconceivable. The one person we have yet to hear from is General Ham, the Commander of AFRICOM on Sep. 11, 2012. He has not been heard from since Sept. 11, 2012, but he was relieved of his command early, a little more than a month after the attack. Get him in front of a hearing and we will get full and honest answers to why there was a complete lack of military response, leaving our State Dept. and CIA personnel in Benghazi to fight and die wholly on their own.

On a related note, the Hill is running a story today that Obama's Pentagon is refusing to comply with a request from the House to provide "access to documents on last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi."

Post Attack Cover-up

Lastly, on the issue of the post attack actions by the White House and Sec. of State, Hicks testified that no one from the State Dept. mission in Libya ever characterized the attack as anything other than a terrorist attack. There was never even a suggestion that it was a movie review gone rogue. This from PJM:

Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his “management style” and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

Questions Raised Or Left Unanswered

In sum, as regards the three legs of this scandal, this hearing scratched a bit below the surface, but left more questions than answers on each of the issues. We still don't know anything approaching the full story behind the criminally reckless refusals to increase security, only now we know that the ostensible reason for the refusal given by the Accountability Review Board is likely false.

We now know that some military assets were withheld and we now know that someone in the White House made a decision to sideline the FEST team. Who and why remain unanswered. Further, as to all available military assets, we need to hear directly from Gen. Ham. Lastly, never addressed during the hearing - but still out there - is Obama's role in the non-response. I can guarantee that if he said deploy to Benghazi and deploy now, the military would have had assets on the ground long before the last two Americans died some seven hours after hostilities began.

As to the post attack cover-up, there seems to be no question that we were lied to by the Sec. of State and the President in the days and weeks following the attack. There is a real question as to whether the Accountability Review Board report, issued in Dec., was a whitewash. I will add that it seems obvious that it was.

Likely Scenario

Finally, let me speculate on what I think happened as to the three legs of this scandal. The refusals to provide additional security despite the dangerously increasing threat were the result of a policy approved by or at least known to Clinton, if not Obama. Do remember the e-mails discussing a decision made to "normalize" our security posture in Libya. As to the second leg, when the attack came, Obama did precisely as I forecast he or Clinton would do in such a situation in a post I wrote in 2008 - he made a purely political decision not to deploy assets and risk a major embarrassment prior to the election. Lastly, the charges of a cover up really go beyond speculation at this point. Obama will stonewall this for as long as possible, and every left wing media outlet in the nation has already circled the wagons around Hillary. The reality is that their cover-up may work - or at least it will until the House gets Gen. Ham under oath. Then I will be proven wrong or the dam will break.

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The NYT Tosses Sen. Menendez Under The Bus

There is a lot of smoke rising from the area around Sen. Bob Menendez of NJ, the man designated by Sen. Harry Reid to be the next Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Is there fire underlying it? A recent op-ed from the NYT suggests that there might be an inferno.

Allegations are that Menedez engaged in sex with underage Dominican prostitutes and that he accepted expensive gifts, all of which are related to his relationship with Florida eye surgeon Salomon Melgen, a man whose interests Menendez inappropriately championed with our government. We of course do not know definitively at this point whether any or all of the allegations are true, but in a rather amazing turn of events, the NYT editorial board has tossed Menendez under the bus in an op-ed calling for him to be denied the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And indeed, the op-ed looks like it could have been written by someone at the NRO:

. . . At issue are the curious dealings between Mr. Menendez and his close friend and benefactor Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye surgeon and major Democratic donor. The senator’s efforts to help Dr. Melgen, part-owner of a firm that had a long-dormant contract with the Dominican Republic to provide port security, revive that lucrative contract — deemed an exorbitant giveaway by business leaders and government officials there — were detailed in an article in The Times last week by Raymond Hernandez and Frances Robles. The contract’s dubious legitimacy and Dr. Melgen’s lack of experience in border security issues did not deter Mr. Menendez from pressing State and Commerce Department officials to insist that the contract be honored, including at a hearing in July of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee over which he presided.

Compounding the unseemliness, Senator Menendez’s help came as Dr. Melgen was in the process of making donations totaling $700,000 to Majority PAC, a Democratic “super PAC” set up by former aides to Mr. Reid. Majority PAC ended up shoveling $582,500 to Mr. Menendez’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Mr. Menendez’s interventions on Dr. Melgen’s behalf were not limited to port security. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Mr. Menendez personally raised concerns with top federal health officials in 2009 and again in 2012 about the fairness of their finding that Dr. Melgen had overbilled the government $8.9 million for care provided at his eye clinic. The Post also reported that Dr. Melgen invoked the senator’s name repeatedly to exert pressure on federal fraud investigators. Last week, F.B.I. agents raided Dr. Melgen’s offices in West Palm Beach and removed 30 boxes of documents and other material, but the focus of the inquiry is unclear. . . .

One suspects that there must be a lot of truth to the allegations for the NYT editorial board to toss a latino progressive Senator from a bluer than blue state under the bus. Normally, the left merely yawns and ignores it when one of their own engages in misconduct. I am left with the impression that the NYT is acting proactively here because they are convinced of the truth of the allegations and that the fallout from the scandal would be exponentially worse if it all comes out only after Menendez is appointed to a position of high power in the Senate democratic hierarchy.

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Scandalous: The Obama Administration Refuses To Prosecute HSBC For Money Laundering

HSBC, Britain's largest bank, knowingly. intentionally, and for years violated U.S. banking laws to launder billions of dollars from drug cartels and from rogue nations under sanctions. This was not simple negligence, this was purely criminal.

There should be a line of HSBC managers and compliance employees being measured now for prison suits, in addition to HSBC itself being prosecuted. Instead, the Obama administration has done precisely what they've done in virtually all high profile white collar criminal cases. They have failed to prosecute. Instead, they have given HSBC a civil fine of $1.9 billlion - a slap on the wrist for an institution that made $16.8 billion in profit in 2011.

For all of his anti-Wall St. and class warfare rhetoric, Obama has been AWOL when it comes to holding actual Wall St. criminals liable. Indeed, under Obama, if you are a criminal, the safest place to be is Wall St., a major bank or a hedge fund operator.

The economic meltdown from the housing bubble should have led to a whole host of criminal prosecutions for fraud. When sub-prime loans were being bundled and resold with a AAA rating, that was not within the realm of reasonable opinion, that was criminal. When Goldman Sachs marketed four sets of complex mortgage securities to banks and other investors without warning of the high risk, or when they "secretly bet against the investors' positions and deceived the investors about its own positions to shift risk from its balance sheet to theirs," that is fraud. Yet the Obama DOJ refused to prosecute Goldman Sachs or anyone else.

As near as I can tell, no one from the economic melt-down of 2007 has been prosecuted by Obama - and its not hard to understand why. That melt-down was caused by Democrat policies over a period of two decades - ones fought by Bush, McCain and most other Republicans. To prosecute anyone for the crimes that occurred in the creation of the melt-down would shine a bright light on the facts - as well as the utter canard that the melt-down was caused by Republican economic policies or de-regulation.

Then there is Jon Corzine, former Democratic governor of NJ, hedge fund manager of MF Global - and the man who oversaw the fraudulent misuse and loss of $1.2 billion in customer funds. He is still walking the streets - and was a major bundler of funds for Obama in the most recent election.

And now HSBC with no criminal prosecutions of either the institution or the individual culprits. As to the institution:

US authorities defended their decision not to prosecute HSBC for accepting the tainted money of rogue states and drug lords on Tuesday, insisting that a $1.9bn fine for a litany of offences was preferable to the “collateral consequences” of taking the bank to court.

Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking licence in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilised.

HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, said it was “profoundly sorry” for what it called “past mistakes” . . .

Breuer was pressed on why the US authorities had agreed to a deferred prosecution deal for the bank. He dismissed accusations that prosecutors had not been hard enough and said that the Justice Department had looked at the “collateral consequences” to prosecuting the HSBC or taking away its US banking licence. Such a move could have cost thousands of jobs, he said.

HSBC has already sacked all the senior staff involved in the scandal, and agreed to stringent monitoring – the first time a foreign bank has agreed to such oversight. “In this day and age we have to evaluate that innocent people will face very big consequences if you make a decision,” said Breuer. “I don’t think anyone is alleging that HSBC was the mastermind of the scheme,” he said. Rather it was their “incredibly lax” monitoring that was to blame. “HSBC was a vital player,” he said. “But they are not the Sinaloa cartel.”

What utter bullshit this is. One, this is a decision that HSBC is large enough that they can avoid criminal sanctions that would be used to crush smaller competitors under this scenario. Two, Breuer's attempt to minimize HSBC's actions as merely "lax monitoriong" is itself a fraud. You had employees being instructed by management to erase identifying information on transactions specifically so the U.S. authorities would not identify them as coming from unlawful sources. That wasn't lax monitoring, it was knowing and intentional money laundering. And a "my bad" from HSBC is not quite sufficient. If the only consequence for the individuals involved is that they got "sacked," that stinks of trying to hide facts that prosecution of these individuals would bring to light.

The Obama administration is utterly lawless. Obama's class warfare rhetoric is nothing but pure window dressing. This really is scandalous.

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Benghazi: Secret Cable Shows The State Dept. Knew Of The Precise Danger To Our Consulate

The worst scandal in living memory - the slaughter of four Americans in Benghazi by al Qaeda and related groups - just got worse yet again, this time via the leak of a Secret cable showing that our people in Benghazi specifically saw such a coordinated attack as possible and assessed that it would succeed. This from Fox News:

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.

“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.

That cable was addressed to "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee." That this is being embargoed by the MSM is an obscenity. I am waiting again to hear Hillary pawn off responsibility for security decisions in the run up to the 9-11 attacks. Obama refused to answer who denied requests for more security in Benghazi and why. The reason virtually has to be because of a policy decision by either Clinton or Obama. We need those answers before Nov. 6. - as well as the answers to the other equally serious legs of this scandal. Who denied military support to the consulate during the seven hour attack, and why did the Obama government claim for weeks that the attack was the spontaneous reaction to a youtube video?

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Benghazi: Who Put The 3 A.M. Phone Call On Hold?

Benghazi was the administration's 3 A.M. phone call. Someone in the administration, perhaps Obama himself or with his knowledge, put that phone call on hold, abandoning our people in Benghazi to their death. Their inaction, no doubt borne of political calculations, is criminal. No need to take my word for it.

Admiral James Lyons, U.S.N., Ret., former commander of the Pacific Fleet, doesn't hold back on the Obama administrations failures in Benghazi or the degree of deception he sees being practiced. Adm. Lyons writes in the Washington Times today, calling for immediate and "full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up:"

Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.

Panetta's claim that there was insufficient intelligence to launch our military assets in support of the Benghazi mission is just pure, unadulterated bullshit. He had better real time intel than any commander could hope to have going into a combat situation. As to Panetta's claim that Gen. Ham and Gen. Dempsey concurred - I want to hear that with my own ears. That is simply unbelievable. More on Gen. Ham at the bottom of this post.

To continue from Adm. Lyons:

The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI, State Department and the Pentagon, watched and listened to the assault but did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance. It has been reported that President Obama met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office, presumably to see what support could be provided. After all, we had very credible military resources within striking distance. At our military base in Sigonella, Sicily, which is slightly over 400 miles from Benghazi, we had a fully equipped Special Forces unit with both transport and jet strike aircraft prepositioned. Certainly this was a force much more capable than the 22-man force from our embassy in Tripoli.

I know those Special Forces personnel were ready to leap at the opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind they would have wiped out the terrorists attackers. Also I have no doubt that Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would have had his local commander at Sigonella ready to launch; however, apparently he was countermanded—by whom? We need to know.

I also understand we had a C-130 gunship available, which would have quickly disposed of the terrorist attackers. This attack went on for seven hours. Our fighter jets could have been at our Benghazi mission within an hour. Our Special Forces out of Sigonella could have been there within a few hours. There is not any doubt that action on our part could have saved the lives of our two former Navy SEALs and possibly the ambassador.

Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only in incomprehensible, it is un-American.

To anyone without any military experience, Panetta's claim that there was not sufficient intelligence and that, as a matter of doctrine, we don't put soldier's in harms way without a complete intel picture probably sounds reasonable. I can virtually assure you that to every current and former military officer - on the facts of Benghazi - Panetta's explanation is ludicrous. It is meant to gloss over deliberate inaction that was criminal. As Adm. Lyons concludes:

Somebody high up in the administration made the decision that no assistance (outside our Tripoli embassy) would be provided, and let our people be killed. The person who made that callous decision needs to be brought to light and held accountable. According to a CIA spokesperson, “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need.” We also need to know whether the director of CIA and the director of National Intelligence were facilitators in the fabricated video lie and the overall cover-up. Their credibility is on the line. A congressional committee should be immediately formed to get the facts out to the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.

Obama was asked directly, at the Town Hall debate, who denied the requests for additional security in Benghazi in the run up to 9-11 and why they denied those requests. Obama did not answer the questions. Obama was asked directly by a reporter last week whether the administration denied requests for help during the Benghazi attack. Obama did not answer the question. Obama is trying to string this out until after the election. This is a scandal far worse than Watergate, and yet Obama is being aided at every turn by a MSM totally vested in his reelection. This really is surreal.

Update: This from Michael Ramirez at IBD captures the situation perfectly:

The first person we need to hear from is Gen. Ham, the AFRICOM commander during the Benghazi attack. Panetta claims that Gen. Ham agreed with him, that there was insufficient intel to send military support to Benghazi. There is a rumor that Gen. Ham was relieved of his command on that night because he was preparing to disobey an order to stand down. We know that Gen. Ham is still listed as the AFRICOM Cdr, but that Panetta announced his replacement two weeks ago after Gen Ham had only been in command for 18 months. Further, we now learn that Gen Ham is no longer even at his post, he has returned to the U.S. and is being processed out of the Army into retirement. It would be very unusual indeed for a Commanding officer to physically leave his post at any time before a change of command ceremony in which both he and the incoming commander would participate. Someone needs to interview Gen. Ham.

(H/T Hot Air)

Update: The White House has just released photos of Obama in the WH Situation Room, looking at a large screen video link and getting an update on Sandy. Instapundit links to various twitter responses, asking where the pic is of Obama in the Situation Room during the Benghazi attack. Where indeed?

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"Inexcusable" - Former National Security Advisor McFarlane On Benghazi

(H/T Gateway Pundit)

This is a massive scandal. Americans died because of foreign policy based on fantasy, then a horrendous refusal to provide military support during the seven hour assault, a decision driven by politically motivated risk aversion. In the weeks and month since, the Obama administration has covered up and iied to the American people. Yet the number of front page stories at the NYT devoted to this scandal so far - 0. On today's Sunday morning news shows, only Fox News even brought up the issue of Benghazi.

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The Benghazi Scandal Worsens - Risk Aversion Results In A Complete Operational Failure (Update 3)

The Benghazi scandal just got much worse. I posted below that it appears that the decision to deny the requests for additional security in Benghazi made in the months prior to 9-11 was a political decision made at the Clinton / Obama level. Now Fox News has broken a story that, during the attack itself, one that lasted, on and off, over a period of seven hours, the consulate's multiple calls for assistance were refused by the 'chain of command' - that even though we had a drone on station providing real time intelligence and more than sufficient assets to provide a rapid and effective response. American lives were lost because of that it.

[Update: Bill Kristol, in a column linked at the bottom of this post, notes that the CIA has, in a denial made in response to the Fox News story below, "thrown Obama under the bus." Kristol makes the case that the decision to deny military support had to come directly from Obama.]

This from Fox News:

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

This part, referencing the "CIA chain of command," is unclear. Maybe the CIA station chief?

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. . . .

Although Fox uses the word "again," this is the first mention of a request for outside military support. What was the situation report, who did it go to, who had operational control of responsive assets, were they alerted, and who ultimately denied the request?

Moreover, the people on the ground in Benghazi were not operating in a vacuum. Everyone up the chain of command to Obama, would have been alerted of the attack soon after it began. Sec. of Def. Panetta, CIA Chief Petraeus, and Gen. Ham of the U.S. Africa Commmand (AFRICOM) would not have been just standing around waiting for reports. They would be conducting their own analysis of what the situation required. There would be contingency plans in place that would have been - and clearly were - activated. Special ops units were immediately deployed to Italy awaiting deployment to Libya - orders that never came.

Update 3: There is a rumor that Gen. Ham was in the midst of violating an order from Panetta and deploying his Spec Ops resources to Benghazi when he was stopped by his second in command who, so the story goes, informed Gen. Ham that he was immediately relieved of his command by Panetta. Is this true?

There is at least some evidence that would lend credence to the rumor. The prior commander of AFRICOM, Gen. Ward, served 3 1/2 years in that position. Sec. of Def. Panetta just announced seven days ago that Gen. David Rodriguez had been tapped as the new AFRICOM commander. Gen. Ham had only served in his position as AFRICOM Commander for 1 1/2 years. This would seem a very early exit indeed. The announcement gave no indication of what, if any, would be Gen. Ham's follow on assignment.

Further, per Protein Wisdom:

As I was typing this I heard John Bolton on Greta say that there are conflicting reports of General Ham’s comments on this tragedy and why a rapid response unit was not deployed. Bolton says someone needs to find out what Ham was saying on 9/11/12.

Indeed they do. To continue with the Fox News story:

There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

A Special Operations team, or CIF which stands for Commanders in Extremis Force, operating in Central Europe had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but they were never told to deploy. In fact, a Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country.

That a "pentagon official" would mention that as an excuse is utterly ridiculous.  Whether or not a request for additional military support was communicated to the Pentagon is virtually meaningless. These are professionals paid to analyze and respond to a situation, not to wait with their thumbs up their collective asses to be told what to do by the people on the ground - people who may or may not even be aware of what assets are available.

A second force that specializes in counterterrorism rescues was on hand at Sigonella, according to senior military and intelligence sources. According to those sources, they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours. They were the same distance to Benghazi as those that were sent from Tripoli. Spectre gunships are commonly used by the Special Operations community to provide close air support.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

If you have a target 'painted' with a laser, that means that our laser guided munitions can be fired from the air with pin point accuracy. We had weapons platforms within one to two hours of the target. An AC130 Spectre gunship would have ended that threat faster than the blink of an eye and with mimimal collateral damage. That none of these assets were launched is just utterly inexplicable.

Update 2: From a Special Ops commenter at Blackfive:

One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not "paint" a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.

Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.

If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

If that SEAL was actively "painting" a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS.

Continuing with the Fox News story:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

"There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here," Panetta said Thursday. "But the basic principle here ... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

That is pure, unadulterated, absolute and utter bullshit. Panetta needs to be removed from office immediately. There were two military drones on station providing real time visual intelligence - that in addition to continuous ground reports. The most dangerous enemy asset was laser designated, for God's sake. Bottom line, Panetta had better real time intelligence than 99.99% of all military commanders in history have ever had when deploying troops. There is a pretty clear line between criticizing unconscionable operational failure and "monday morning quarterbacking." This failure to act was the former, it was was pure risk aversion that got our people killed.

U.S. officials argue that there was a period of several hours when the fighting stopped before the mortars were fired at the annex, leading officials to believe the attack was over.

Wow. Again, as an excuse, that one doesn't even begin to cut it. Our people in Benghazi had just suffered an attack from a sizable and organized militia group, our forces had taken casualties, and the Ambassador himself was MIA. So what, the fighting had stopped, so just let the survivors hang out there in their precarious position? You would want to immediately send security to stabilize the situation and protect the survivors just in case THE FIGHTING STARTED AGAIN!!!!!! Unbelievable.

Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.

Tyrone Woods was later joined at the scene by fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who was sent in from Tripoli as part of a Global Response Staff or GRS that provides security to CIA case officers and provides countersurveillance and surveillance protection. They were killed by a mortar shell at 4 a.m. Libyan time, nearly seven hours after the attack on the consulate began -- a window that represented more than enough time for the U.S. military to send back-up from nearby bases in Europe, according to sources familiar with Special Operations. Four mortars were fired at the annex. The first one struck outside the annex. Three more hit the annex.

A motorcade of dozens of Libyan vehicles, some mounted with 50 caliber machine guns, belonging to the February 17th Brigades, a Libyan militia which is friendly to the U.S., finally showed up at the CIA annex at approximately 3 a.m. An American Quick Reaction Force sent from Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport at 2 a.m. (four hours after the initial attack on the consulate) and was delayed for 45 minutes at the airport because they could not at first get transportation, allegedly due to confusion among Libyan militias who were supposed to escort them to the annex, according to Benghazi sources.

The American special operators, Woods, Doherty and at least two others were part of the Global Response Staff, a CIA element, based at the CIA annex and were protecting CIA operators who were part of a mission to track and repurchase arms in Benghazi that had proliferated in the wake of Muammar Qaddafi's fall. Part of their mission was to find the more than 20,000 missing MANPADS, or shoulder-held missiles capable of bringing down a commercial aircraft. According to a source on the ground at the time of the attack, the team inside the CIA annex had captured three Libyan attackers and was forced to hand them over to the Libyans. U.S. officials do not know what happened to those three attackers and whether they were released by the Libyan forces. . . .

Every single aspect of the Benghazi debacle stinks of scandal and failure. Each new revelation just compounds this travesty. The truth needs to be made known and people held accountable. I have no illusions that this will happen before Nov. 6, but this is one that should not and cannot be swept under the rug.

Update: The CIA has responded with a carefully worded statement, not denying that requests for more assistance were made during the firefight, but only that "[n]o one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need." As Bill Kristol, writing at the Weekly Standard, describes this statement, CIA Chief Gen. Petraeus just threw Obama under the bus. As Kristol explains the implications:

So who in the government did tell “anybody” not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No.

It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?

It would seem that all roads in this scandal lead to the Oval Office.

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The Heart Of The Benghazi Scandal - Did Obama Know Or Approve Of The Decision To Deny More Security

Who denied the requests for more security in Benghazi and why? Those were the questions directly posed to Obama at the Town Hall Debate, and those were the two questions he did everything but answer. And now today:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama.

Appearing on The Blaze TV’s “Wilkow!” on Wednesday night, Klein told host Andrew Wilkow that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been having “big fights” for “two or three weeks” about the issue, according to his two sources on Clinton’s legal counsel. While Bill Clinton wishes his wife would “exonerate” herself by releasing the documents that show she wasn’t at fault for the tragic security failure in Libya, the secretary of state refuses to do so because she doesn’t want to be viewed as a traitor to the Democratic party.

Why should we believe this might be true? I have enough experience in the military and with providing security with weapons loaded to know that the people administratively charged with making decisions on security would not possibly have denied the requests absent a policy decision made at a much higher level. And indeed, I cannot see any career employee in the chain of command denying a request for more security in Benghazi, given the availability of assets and all that was known about the deteriorating situation. In other words, I would bet my last dollar that the decision to deny more security was made pursuant to a policy decision in the political chain of command - and that means Clinton and / or Obama. And if there is any truth to the story above, then that person was Obama.

Bottom line, this has huge implications for how we should be evaluating Obama's stewardship. The decision to deny additional security in light of the increasing risks and prior attacks was not merely reckless, it was criminally reckless. And if such a decision was made pursuant to a policy approved by Obama, it shows a foreign policy based on pure fantasy and fairy dust. That proved fatal to Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans. It could prove equally disastrous for our nation. Both Clinton and Obama need to be asked on the record again, who denied the requests for more security in Benghazi and why?

Update: Some fascinating analysis from Bookworm Room on the reliability of Edward Klein and the genesis of this huge leak:

How reliable is Edward Klein? I don’t know. I don’t believe anyone challenged the facts in his book The Amateur, even if they disagreed with their import. One thing that was immediately clear from reading The Amateur was that Klein got a lot of his information from Hillary Clinton’s camp. . . .

. . . Here’s what I think happened:

Events played out exactly as Hillary’s leakers claim. Hillary was silent about the White House’s culpability when it still looked as if Obama could win, because she needed to be on Obama’s good side in the event he won the election. Now that Obama has the stale smell of failure about him, two things have happened. First, Hillary doesn’t believe that Obama’s coat tails will be very useful. And second, the Democrats are launching a preemptive strike against Bill Clinton, claiming that it was his bad advice that led to Obama’s disastrous campaign decisions.

As Bookworm goes on to note, this has the air of revenge by Bill. Do read her whole post.

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Chris Lee's Craiglist Ad Updated

39-y.o (more of less) soon to be divorced fit fun classy guy, very recently unemployed, seeks hot lady that has never heard of Gawker.

What a scumbag. This joker was Clintonesque in his stupidity. Oh well, let the left-wing laugh-fest commence. It's deserved. I am just glad this was smoked out now.

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Making A Motion On The Floor

Heh. This is like a Leno skit. So what do Republican state lawmakers do when they get bored during floor debate. Well, if you're Florida Senator Mike Bennett . . .



Actually, Bennett claims the photo was attached to an e-mail sent from a female friend. I am sure there is a moral to be teased from this, but my brain is too tired at the moment to identify it.

My own reaction to this - relief. At least this isn't a Republican Senator taking a wide stance in an airport restroom or sending sexually charged messages to underage male pages. Besides, this may well just generate more converts to the Republican party's fastest growing new wing.

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In Defense Of The Pope

A bit of late blogging on this one. From the most unlikely of source - the pages of the NYT - we see a substantive defense of Pope Benedict XVI as to his own role in the Church's sex abuse scandals. Op-ed columnist Ross Douthat takes note of the efforts then Cardinal Ratzinger made to address sex scandals in the Church, fighting the Vatican bureauacracy and the disorganization of Pope John Paul II. As Mr. Douthat concludes:

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

Has Benedict done enough to clean house and show contrition? Alas, no. Has his Vatican responded to the latest swirl of scandal with retrenchment, resentment, and an un-Christian dose of self-pity? Absolutely. Can this pontiff regain the kind of trust and admiration, for himself and for his office, that John Paul II enjoyed? Not a chance.

But as unlikely as it seems today, Benedict may yet deserve to be remembered as the better pope.

Do read the entire article.

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Ethics In A Democrat Majority Congress and Massa Unleashed

Democrat Rep. Eric Masa has gone nuclear on Congress and the Obama administration. Already having announced his resignation from Congress effective at 5 p.m. today, Massa claims, with some apparent justification, that he is being railroaded out of Congress by the House leadership and Rahm Emanuel because of his refusal to vote "yes" on Obamacare. This from Massa's radio interview on Sunday:

- On the incident that is the subject of the ethics complaint against him:

“On New Year’s Eve, I went to a staff party. It was actually a wedding for a staff member of mine; there were over 250 people there. I was with my wife. And in fact we had a great time. She got the stomach flu,” he said.

Massa explained that he then danced first with the bride, who was not identified, and then with a bridesmaid. He said multiple cameras recorded the incident.

“I said goodnight to the bridesmaid,” Massa continued. “I sat down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them by the way bachelors.”

“One of them looked at me and as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics, and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne, a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that,” Massa said. “And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then [I] tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there. Now was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely. Am I guilty? Yes.”

- Massa, as to why he was being "railroaded:"

[Massa] accused Dems of a setup. Massa voted against health care legislation in Nov., and he has not been a reliable vote for Dem leadership. That, he said, has put a target on his back.

"When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn't heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983," Massa said. "And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible."

"If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I'm holding myself to and he should resign," Massa said.

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa's office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

"Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once," Massa said. "Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever."

"I was set up for this from the very, very beginning," he added. "The leadership of the Democratic Party have become exactly what they said they were running against."

Massa bemoaned the state of the nation's politics, which he said is perpetuated by the constant need for money to run for re-election. And, he said, he has been made an example by Dem leadership.

"There is not a single member of the Democratic freshman class [that] is going to vote against this health care bill now that they've got me," he said. "Eric Massa's probably not going to go back to Congress, because the only way I would go back there would be as an independent. A pox on both parties."

- And Massa had some particularly harsh words for Rahm Emanuel, whom he described as "the son of the devil's spawn." You can hear his riff on Emanuel here.

It is not possible, based on what we know today, to dismiss Massa's complaint that he is being railroaded. Ethics in this Democratic congress is an absolute joke. The House Ethics Committee credits the defense of the various Congressman despite all evidence to the contrary. To wit - within the past two weeks, we have been treated to Charlie Rangel being given a slap on the wrists for taking a Carribean vacation paid for by lobbyists when the rules were clear that such is an ethics violation. Rangel's defense, accepted by the Ethics Committee, was that he never received the multiple communications from his staff, by e-mail and letter, informing him of the rule. If only we applied that same degree of deference to incredulous defenses in our criminal courts, we could solve the problem of prison overcrowding immediately.

But it gets better. The same ethics committee cleared seven Congressmen, including Jim Moran and Jack Murtha, of trading pork for campaign contributions despite a series of e-mails and letters that directly spell out what was going on. Indeed, there seems little difference between the evidence used to convict Duke Cunningham and the evidence that most of the seven Congressman were trading pork for campaign contributions. The only substantive difference appears to be that the House Ethics Committee gave preference to the flat denials from the Congressman.

And since when did the Democrat Party become incensed with inappropriate conduct relating solely to sex - whether homosexual or heterosexual (and in the case of Ted Kennedy, throw in homicide). As to the heterosexual scandal, the poster boy is Bill Clinton, though JFK doing Marilyn Monroe in the oval office comes a close second. As to homosexual scandal, in 1990 Barney Frank had one of his gay pick ups running a gay prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment. Barney is still in office. In 1983, Democrat Rep. Gerry Studds received only a censure for bending over a few of the young male paiges. He too continued in office. Even if Massa's comment was more than a mere joke, the history of Democrats is that they don't care. So, it would seem Massa may have some legitimate complaint that he is being railroaded.

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Gov. Sanford - Time To Resign Or Be Prosecuted

Carrying on an affair while in office - very poor judgment, but let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Leaving for a roll in the hay with mistress over Father's Day - judgment now at slimeball level. Give me the stone, I'll throw it.

The governor goes off the radar and is uncontactable, leaving the state without its Executive and without turning power over to the Lt. Governor - its time to resign with whatever grace he can muster.

The governor gets caught and makes a tearful mea culpa - cry me a river. Actions have consequences, and while I may feel some remorse for the governor, saying "sorry" does not begin to fix the problem of a governor whose lack of judgment in his personal life held out the potential for serious damage to his state.

Making the trip on the public's dime - you're out of there, Bozo. And if the state wants to file criminal charges over misuse of funds, they are completely warranted.

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